Ferdinand Schoerner

Ferdinand Schorner (12 June 1892-2 July 1973) was a Field Marshal of Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht who fought in World War II. He was infamous for his brutality and was Adolf Hitler's favorite commander at the end of the war; he was the last of Hitler's former Generalfeldmarschalls to die.

Biography
Ferdinand Schorner was born on 12 June 1892 in Munich in the Kingdom of Bavaria in the German Empire (present-day Germany). He joined the Reichswehr on 10 January 1911 and served in World War I, fighting in the Battle of Caporetto in 1917 as a Lieutenant. He was awarded the Pour le Merite for his services and became a staff officer and instructor in the aftermath of World War I. In 1923, he served under Bavarian general Otto von Lossow in the quelling of the Beer Hall Putsch by the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler. However, he later became a diehard Nazi and turned the Waffen-SS from a paramilitary force into a corps of stormtroopers able to fight alongside the Wehrmacht.

Commanding the German 98th Mountain Regiment during the 1939 Poland Campaign of World War II, he became known for his skills. Schorner led the German 6th Mountain Division in the breaching of the Metaxas Line during the invasion of Greece in 1940, the battle of Crete, and he served in the Arctic Sectors of the Eastern Front in the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. His unit fought on the Dnieper and the Carpathians and in May 1944 he was made the commander of Army Group South Ukraine. Schorner ordered the evacuation of the port of Sevastopol in Crimea, but many of the German 17th Army and Romanian 17th Army were killed or wounded as they waited at the piers for evacuation. Schorner managed in the defense of the crumbling Romanian front against the Soviets on the Dniester River as the Soviets launched Operation Bagration against the Ais Powers. In April he was promoted to Colonel-General and in July he took command of Army Group North, staying in command of them in the Courland Pocket until January 1945. He took over Army Group Centre in Czechoslovakia and the Oder River and he was praised for his victories.

On 4 April 1945, he was proclaimed a Field Marshal and the commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany. When OKW chief-of-staff Alfred Jodl surrendered to the Allies on 7 May 1945, Schorner planned to fight his way westward to surrender to the Western Allies in order to save himself and his army the horrible treatment endured at the hands of the Soviets. However, he ordered a continuation of fighting against Czech insurgents and the Red Army and later on 8 May he deserted his command. On 18 May, he was captured by the US Army in Austria. On 11 May 1945, Army Group Centre surrendered to the Americans and Soviets during the Prague Offensive. In 1951 he was charged with waging a criminal war by the Soviet Union but was transferred to West Germany in 1958 and he was released in 1963. In the late 1960s he gave an interview to an Italian historian about his role in the Austro-German victory at the Battle of Caporetto in World War I in 1917 rather than about his World War II service. He died in Munich on 2 July 1973.